China’s free AI models may not stay free, Goldman says
China’s free AI models may not stay free, Goldman says

For a year, the story of Chinese AI has been simple. It is nearly as good as the American frontier, and it is effectively free. That second part may be about to change. Chinese developers could start charging cloud platforms commercial licensing fees t…

The handoff tax: What it costs when your rep is alone on the call
The handoff tax: What it costs when your rep is alone on the call

The most expensive moment in a B2B sales cycle does not look like one. An account executive is thirty minutes into a live call. Discovery is finished, the buyer is engaged, and the conversation has moved past polite curiosity into the part where deals …

The AI wrote every security control. It skipped the question underneath
The AI wrote every security control. It skipped the question underneath

A penetration test at a financial services firm managing billions of dollars in client assets has found a critical flaw in AI-generated code. The interesting part is what the code got right. Sygnia, the incident response firm, assessed a customer onboa…

The Italian state just backed €500m for the company that owns AOL
The Italian state just backed €500m for the company that owns AOL

Bending Spoons has agreed a €500m loan facility guaranteed by the Italian state. The guarantee comes from SACE, Italy’s export credit agency, which is wholly owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. HSBC Continental Europe, Intesa Sanpaolo and BPE…

A quarter of the S&P now claims measurable AI benefits. Last year it was 14%
A quarter of the S&P now claims measurable AI benefits. Last year it was 14%

Wall Street has spent three years paying for the companies that build AI. It is starting to pay for the companies that use it. The rotation has a number behind it. Morgan Stanley ran a systematic analysis of earnings call transcripts. It found that 25%…

Friendsurance invented peer-to-peer insurance. It just sold for its paperwork.
Friendsurance invented peer-to-peer insurance. It just sold for its paperwork.

Cover Genius has acquired Friendsurance, the Berlin company that invented peer-to-peer insurance. The deal took effect immediately, and neither side disclosed a price. Friendsurance built its name on a simple idea. Small groups of policyholders pool to…

Coforge says AI is expanding its margins. Its rivals call it ‘AI deflation’
Coforge says AI is expanding its margins. Its rivals call it ‘AI deflation’

Coforge reported first quarter revenue of $592.2m on Monday. That is a rise of 33% in dollar terms over the year, and 21.1% on the previous quarter. In rupees the annual increase reads 49%. Profit after tax reached $55.6m. Those numbers land in an indu…

Amkor will spend up to $3bn this year, close to 40% of its revenue
Amkor will spend up to $3bn this year, close to 40% of its revenue

Amkor Technology reported record second quarter results on Monday. Revenue reached $1.9bn, up 26% on a year earlier, and net income more than tripled. Operating income roughly doubled to $200m. Earnings came in at $0.70 a diluted share, against $0.22. …

X Money can cut off your account over what you post
X Money can cut off your account over what you post

X Money went live on Monday. Buried in its support pages is a rule that no ordinary bank applies to a current account. “If your X account is suspended for violating Child Safety or Violent and Hateful Entities policies, you will lose Money access,” the…

An AI correction is now a top global credit risk, Fitch says
An AI correction is now a top global credit risk, Fitch says

Fitch Ratings has gathered a number of the market’s quieter anxieties into a single sentence, warning that a possible AI market correction is now emerging as one of the biggest credit risks facing the global economy. The judgement comes in the agency’s…